Innholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2019 i Grow to Eat

Just before Lanseria airport there is an industrial complex: featureless warehouses, security booms and paved car park. It's the last place you would expect to find a potager that’s lush with salad vegetables, bees buzzing among blue-flowering borage, and a shady arbour screened by lemon trees. It just goes to show that you can grow vegetables and herbs anywhere provided you’ve got the imagination, passion and space. The Gutstadt family has that in barrow-loads, starting Culinary Equipment Company in 1999, and 14 years later creating a kitchen garden (almost hidden at the end of the building) to supply their garden-to-table restaurant, Culinary Table. It started with providing staff lunches, and developed into the dream of a restaurant that expressed the family’s personal ethos of local, seasonal and organic. What kind…

Heat and water restrictions are changing how we garden, because whether the drought continues or not, we all need to think about best water-usage practices. Some steps to take are: Don’t overproduce: wasted veggies are a waste of resources. Use containers: it takes less water to keep a few pots watered than it does to water a piece of ground. Catching water that would otherwise be wasted makes gardening in pots most efficient. Keep a watering can by the sink and fill it with cool water any time you are waiting for the hot water to make its way from the geyser to the tap. Grow chillies! One of the veggies that is easiest to grow in containers, and which can take heat without guzzling water, is the chilli. Harvesting…

Watching a child relishing a fresh, juicy, sweet plum or peach is a sight to behold – it’ll make anyone smile. The stone fruit season is here, with fresh peaches, plums and nectarines a very welcome sight on supermarket shelves (and on your trees, we hope!). Some of South Africa’s children are perhaps not aware of just how delicious and candy-like these fruits are, but getting them hooked shouldn't be hard. Inspire kids with some tempting and unusual recipes and you’ll have them eating those nectarines, plums and peaches out of your hands forever more. Here are two scrumptious kid-friendly recipes – and once you say the words ‘popsicles’ and ‘golden syrup’ they’ll be keen to know what you’re about to serve up, that’s for sure. RECIPE Nectarine, maple and…

Earlier this year a few of us from The Gardener and Grow to Eat spent Valentine’s Day in a flooded farm field outside Joburg, at the Stark Ayres Kaalfontein Research Farm. Wet feet aside, it was an incredible, eye-opening day where we learned that the research that goes on behind crop seeds simply boggles the mind. The Farmers’ Day is so impressive because it allows Stark Ayres’ customers to see for themselves the varieties of crops that Stark Ayres produces. In addition, the company’s product specialists are on hand for advice on everything from seed selection to growing and harvesting, and even marketing. The Stark Ayres product specialists themselves are particularly impressive – all day, every day, all year, these guys work in their particular field (pun? Maybe…), growing different…

Our office veggie garden is a trial garden of sorts so is always evolving and changing. We like to try things out, experiment with different veggies, gardening techniques and garden products like fertilisers and biological control agents like the new EcoBuz range. And when we recently decided to add some containers to our garden, we looked around for something fresh and new, that would complement the appearance of the garden and still be long lasting and practical. While searching for something that would fit the bill we came across the beautiful ‘wriggly tin’ (what the Aussies call corrugated iron!) containers from RainQueen. These were exactly what we were after, and were duly ordered in various shapes and depths, delivered and installed. Now they are looking spectacular, planted up with a…

You can never go wrong with a good potato. The rest of the world seems to agree, as potatoes are the fifth most produced crop in the world, behind staples like sugar cane and rice. It’s popularity and versatility even made it the first plant ever to be grown in space! A true farm-to-table feast would be incomplete without a slew of garden-grown potatoes in all their fried, baked or mashed glory, and they can be easily produced in your own backyard. Planting For a harvest of hearty potatoes perfect for winter stews, plant your seed potatoes early in the new year. Growing a new crop from those forsaken sprouted potatoes at the back of your fridge is possible, but they could potentially carry diseases to the rest of your…

Here at Grow to Eat we love passion. We love meeting people who put their everything into their chosen field, who love to talk about it, and who drive knowledge forward. And Bruce Milne is one of these people, without a doubt. A semi-retired exploration geologist now living in Curry’s Post in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, Bruce and his wife, Gillian, were living in Burundi but decided to come back to South Africa when the company they were working for pulled out of Africa. Since Gillian can’t keep her hands out of the dirt (Bruce’s words, not ours!), they looked for a small farm, which they found online and rented immediately because of the views and location in the fertile KZN Midlands. In this new stage of their life Gillian began…

Summer is all about watermelons – biting into the cool flesh and having the juice run down your chin and onto the lawn (because eating watermelon inside should be banned!). Actually, watermelons have created a bit of strife in my household, to be honest – I can’t handle lugging a whole watermelon home, struggling to carry it from the shop to the car, load it, store it in the fridge, and eat it before it goes mushy. They’re a delicious bone of contention. Which is why I absolutely love the newer, family-sized watermelons that are available these days. About the size of a bowling ball, for all our American readers, or a soccer ball for the rest of us, these ‘personal watermelons’, as they’re referred to in the industry, are…

One of the greatest benefits of growing your own is to have complete control over all aspects of your harvest. Another key benefit is alleviating the constantly rising costs of food. We are blessed with great weather in most parts of the country, and subsistence growing is rewarding and affordable. The ultimate goal is to produce tasty, healthy food packed with natural goodness, with minimal interventions and costs. Growing strong, healthy plants starts with healthy soil – the foundation of a sustainable garden. Healthy plants are more likely to produce higher yields and are less susceptible to pests and diseases – both these factors impact directly on your pocket. The new EcoBuz range offers sustainable biological solutions that are ideal for the edible garden: They have been extensively researched with…

The summer bounty at Albertvale Farm is abundant and delicious and ready for some serious processing and eating. What a pleasure to wake up in the early mornings and hear the cacophony of birdsong, the chatting of the little lambs and the rustling of the wildlife in the garden. I have used most of my autumn leaves to generously mulch my garden paths. It makes a wonderful soft and earthy feel underfoot, and I can walk barefoot through the garden. I feel this is essential for that grounding and energy injection to start the day. Occasionally I just lie down on the grass and look skywards and just be… How often do we do that, and really enjoy the fruits of our gardening? The season has been interesting here on…

Before 2019 celery was an elusive vegetable that appeared in the occasional salad or disguised in a chef’s mirepoix. But now that the Kardashians have sworn by the health benefits of celery juice and various Instagram influencers have labelled it a ‘superfood’, celery is front and centre in the health world. Whether they were paid off by ‘big celery’ or just needed a new trend to start, celery is finally getting its much-deserved airtime and us gardeners should be ecstatic. Store-bought celery is miles apart from crunchy, juicy garden-grown celery in terms of flavour and texture, and with its upsurge in popularity now is the perfect time to plant. THE BASICS Celery tends to be called fussy, but the trick to successful growth is to treat your celery as though…

PUMPKIN SPICE and all things nice Pumpkin spice recipe The taste of anything pumpkin related is usually a reminder of cosy family Christmases and relaxing times when you weren’t the one slaving away over the holiday dinner. A recent trend promises to deliver that feeling without a single pumpkin in sight – pumpkin spice. Using a mix of the same spices from many traditional recipes in fancy lattes or desserts has become a popular way of bringing the holiday feeling into your daily routine, and now you can make your own in less than 2 minutes. Mix together 4 teaspoons cinnamon, 2 teaspoons ginger, 2 teaspoons nutmeg and 1 teaspoons cloves, and store in an airtight container. This mix can be added to coffees, whipped cream, roasted veggies or used…

Sage, an extremely popular herb a few hundred years ago, has now been relegated to the back of the spice cupboard, only to be dusted off once a year for holiday stuffing. Its popularity stemmed from its healing properties, evident in the botanical name Salvia officinalis – ‘salvare’ means ‘to heal’ in Latin and ‘officinalis’ refers to the storeroom of monasteries where medicinal herbs were kept. Considering its extensive history, this herb is far too good for a solitary annual use, but the holidays are the best reminder to start growing your own. Growing and Care Sage can flourish in a number of conditions but grows best in full sunlight, either in the garden or in a container. It is a great herb for beginners, or anyone ‘herbily-challenged’, as it…

I have a confession to make: I never used to like figs. (Or avocados, but that’s another story.) Then I went to Turkey and spent a few days drifting around Istanbul, touristing, eating and trying to resist the supernaturally gifted Turkish carpet salesmen from loading me with their wares. My ultimate discovery was not the culture, but the buffet breakfasts that feature Turkey’s greatest produce: fresh and dried apricots, yoghurt unlike any you have ever tasted before, honey fit for the gods, Turkish delight, sesame treats, hazelnuts, and figs prepared in all manner of ways. This was my conversion moment, for never before had I sampled anything as delicious. And the best thing about figs is that you can grow them at home, in a pot or in the garden,…